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PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON – WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Wednesday 3 February 2016 (Morning) In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Sir Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Mr David Crausby Mr Mark Hendrick _____________ IN ATTENDANCE: Mr Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel, Department for Transport Mr Richard Turney, Counsel, Department for Transport Mr Alastair Lewis, Sharpe Pritchard Mr Edward Briggs, Bidwells Mr Reuben Taylor QC, Counsel, Berwin Leighton Paisner WITN ESSES: Mrs Hilary Prince Mr David Neil Smith Mr and Mrs Michael Raffety Mr Richard Barnes Mr Peter Miller, Environment Director, HS2 Ltd _____________ IN PUBLIC SESSION INDEX Subject Page Silklink (Grimstock Country House Hotel) Submissions by Mr Lewis 3 Response from Mr Mould 9 Robert Brown Submissions by Mr Briggs 15 Response from Mr Mould 20 Closing submissions by Mr Briggs 23 Mr and Mrs Raffety; Rafine Ltd (Trading as Turville Valley Wines) Submissions by Mr and Mrs Raffety 25 Response from Mr Mould 39 Closing submissions by Mrs Raffety 48 The Woodland Trust Introduction from Mr Taylor 49 Evidence of Mr Barnes 50 Response from Mr Strachan 63 Closing submissions by Mr Taylor 34 2 (At 09.30) 1. CHAIR: Order, order. Welcome to the HS2 Select Committee. We start off with petition 410, which we heard some while back, Silklink, Grimstock Country Hotel. Silklink (Grimstock Country House Hotel) 2. MR LEWIS: Thank you very much. Yes, indeed; 24 November 2014 was when I appeared before you last on this case with Hilary Prince, who you sir, and members who were around at that time, may remember, Hilary Prince being the manager of the Grimstock Country House Hotel in Gilson, Warwickshire. 3. Could I have A20992, please, just to remind the Committee why we are here. In italics we have in this letter an extract from your first special report, paragraph 102. ‘In some cases we have undertaken active monitoring or requested a report back. Examples include the petition of Silklink’, which is us, ‘whose staff deserve some certainty of outco me’. So, here we are reporting back. If we go to P970, please, to explain where we are for the benefit of more recent members of the Committee, where we are is in Warwickshire, as I said, on the outskirts of a little village called Gilson, which looks there on that map as if it is completely surrounded by infrastructure and couldn’t possibly be described as a rural setting, but if we go, please, to look at some photographs of the hotel, P974, that is an HS2 photograph. I am not sure it is one we would have chosen because it has the pylon in the background there which doesn’t really set it off very well, but that is the hotel. If we go to P978 there you see the countryside which surrounds the hotel. If we go to P979, that is looking out from the front of the hotel towards Gilson Road, which is the main entrance to the hotel. So, it is a country house style hotel in a semi-rural setting with a very good road infrastructure nearby. It is conveniently placed for the National Exhibition Centre and is used by people who attend events there but also by other local people and used for functions, in particular weddings or rather, should I say, it used to be, and that is one of the points we will come back to later. 4. How are we affected? Could we have P976 as a reminder, please? There you see the petitioner’s property outlined in red. The hotel itself I am pointing at here. So, you will see that the hotel is right up against the pink area. That area is mainly to be used for 3 the diversion of the pylons which I showed you, which are going to be moved nearer to the hotel and also for the diversion of Gilson Road, which is going to be sweep round like that. So, there will be some substantial works very close to the hotel. The period of those works is about two years and eight months in total. We also have the railway, of course, pretty close to the hotel as well. 5. Now, who are we? The owner of this hotel sits behind me. His name is Morteza Vakil. You heard a bit about him last time round. He came from Iran and built up his business from scratch. This is his only business. When he appeared before you in November 2014 he was 68 years old. He is now 69 years old and he wants to retire. His company is called Silklink Limited. They are the petitioners. Hilary is the manager of the hotel. 6. What do we want? As we said last time, we want HS2 to purchase the hotel, the main reason being Mr Vakil’s personal circumstances. His hotel is his pension. He wants to retire and he can’t. Just to give the Committee a reminder and an idea for new members of how much the hotel is worth, Mr Vakil said in evidence last time that he had it valued many years ago at £3.5 million but he had a more recent verbal valuation just before we appeared in 2014 o f £1.5 million based upon the already impending effect of HS2. 7. What did the Committee ask us, or rather ask HS2 to do when we appeared last time? If you go to A2091, please, you will see there, Chairman, your suggested way forward: ‘Go away and discuss with HS2 on these three points and come back to the Committee in three months’ time’. They were happy for me to come and report back to the Committee and see how far we’d got, and then they would make a judgment. 8. In that interim period, there were some discussions, I think, about a way forward, in particular on whether HS2 would be willing to contemplate what is known as a claim for material detriment. A claim for material detriment, to remind you, under the Compensation Code is where part of your land is taken as it is in this case – it is the fields towards the back which are taken for the pylon works. I f so me of your land is taken under the Compensation Code and there are some circumstances where you can show that there is material detriment to the rest of your property, you can require the promoter of the scheme to acquire the whole lot. What we were asking for, really, in 4 terms which we are going to ask again today and remind you of the ask, is that we would like, because of Mr Vakil’s special circumstances, HS2 to acquire the property now in advance of Royal Assent on full compensation terms. 9. If I could just go through what has happened since, I have already taken you, sir, to the wording of your special report where you asked for some certainty for the staff of the hotel. We had HS2’s response to that report in June 2015. Paragraph 213 said, ‘A report was commissioned to explore the issue of a material detriment compensation claim from the petitioner and further information has been requested from the petitioner regarding the use of the property to aid that work. A further report on the outcome of this work will be provided to the Select Committee in autumn 2015’, which did not happen. 10. Then after that could we have P156301, please? On 3 December last year we had a letter from Mr Kidd at HS2 which in summary says that it does not provide good news fo r my clients. Mr Kidd said that HS2 will not acquire the hotel now because, as he says, ‘I understand that your client has bookings at the function suite through 2016 and the business is not one that needs to be relocated prior to commencement’. 11. SIR PETER BOTTOMLEY: A catch 22. 12. MR LEWIS: One of the things I point out is that in fact to say that the function suite is booked through to 2016 is far from the truth. I wasn’t intending to call Hilary to give evidence but she’s told me in advance that they have one booking for a wedding this year. In 2014 when we appeared before you they had 15 and that was about the average. I have also seen a list of notes of telephone calls over the past year or so from people in the locality and other people who have come to the hotel and people who have not come to the hotel who believe e ither that the hotel is imminently going to close because of HS2 or because they think that it has closed already and we have missed quite a lot of bookings because of that. 13. What else has happened since we last appeared before you? As I’ve said, Mr Vakil has got older. 14. CHAIR: I think we all have. 5 15. MR LEWIS: Some have probably aged quicker than others. I think it is fair to say, though he will correct me if I am wrong, that there hasn’t really been much further investment in the hotel or not as much investment as Mr Vakil would want to make, for two reasons: one, the turnover is down and two, HS2 is imminent and I guess there’s a feeling of, ‘Well, why should I bother?’ As I said, the guests are making comments and the wedding bookings are down.